I had an opportunity to attend Fiskars Creative Academy last week. What fun!! Watch for exciting new products and programs from Fiskars.

Add some fun and beauty to your patio..........check out the new project on the web site. Follow the link below.

http://www.deborahspofford.com/projects/plant%20sculpture.htm

Finally I have a little break in my schedule....I am looking forward to decorating my house for the Fall season. I visited my parents yesterday and was inspired by my mother's decorations. I remember when I was a child coming home from school and having our house transformed to reflect the current season or holiday. What fun!!!

If you live in the Portland/Vancouver area I would encourage you to visit a new store. My friend Beth is having her Grand Opening this weekend. Her store name is Lizzabeth A and it is a wonderful place to find holiday decorations, home furnishings, linens, ceramics....etc. The address for her store is 415 NE Birch Street, Camas, WA.

Beth has invited me to her store for a book signing on Friday, October 21st. Hope to see you there!!

Watch the Creative Home segment on AM Northwest tomorrow morning at 9:00Am. I will be showing how to make Trick or Treat Bags for Halloween. If you miss the show go to the projects page on my web site and click on Trick or Treat Bags for step by step instructions.

Just back from Las Vegas. What a strange place....I saw Elvis.....twice!! Who knew he was short and tall and lived at the airport.

Memory Trends was very busy the first two days. I did not have much time to walk around the show.....but....when I did walk around I saw....paper, paper, paper....embellishments, embellishments, embellishments. It appears that the trends are more contemporary, sleek, clean, and colorful.

I will be attending Memory Trends next week in Las Vegas. I hope to see lots of wondeful new products. I know that Fiskars will be introducing several new tools. I can't wait to tell you about them.

I was the lucky receipient of two new sewing machines this summer. Both are from Brother Sewing Machine Company. I spent several weeks learning how to use them. My other machine was almost 26 years old. It was a wedding present. It was hard to give up the familar old machine but what a difference 26 years makes. I love the new sleek quiet do everything machines!!

The air is very crisp this morning and it rained very hard yesterday. I guess Fall has arrived. I noticed the changing color of leaves this morning when I took my daughter to school. Very beautiful!!

I have been suffering from what I have named PTTYFCTCS. This stands for Post Tramatic Take Your First Child to College Syndrome. This was a very big event at our house a couple of weeks ago. Our son is doing great...it's just his parents that are having a tough time!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to a group of women in our area about the Creative Industry. It was fun to reminisce about how I got started in this crazy business and talk about the opportunites that are available for all of us wild artistic types.

And...of course we could not talk about creativity without an opportunity to create something. So...each person attending the meeting made a luggage tag simalar to the back pack tags on my web site.

Today we taped a television segment for AM Northwest in my studio. What fun!! The crew arrived around 11:00am and we were done by 11:30. We got the whole segment in one take. Watch for the creative home project on August 16th.

I just returned from CHA (Creative Hobby Association) in Chicago. They said it was unusually hot and humid in Chicago this week. It was a big change from our weather in Washington. I was wearing a sweatshirt two days before I left for Chicago!

The highlight of my trip was meeting Carol Duval!!. What a lovely woman.

The show was busy on Friday and then slower on Saturday and Sunday. I did not have much time to walk the floor but when I did...it was paper paper paper. New packaging and sizes seemed to be the trend. I did see a few new companies from other industries trying to merge into the "Scrapbooking" and Hobby industry. Might be a little late to get started...?

Embellishments are still big and it appears that several companies are adding "out of the scrapbooking box" ways to use their papers. I saw one example of this with jewelry charms. Great idea!!

I have reached a mile stone in my life. Our first child graduated from high school this year and will be leaving in the fall for Western Washington University. Wow!! I have very mixed emotions about this.....happy that our son will be experiencing new and wonderful things, but sad that he will be experiencing those things without us. He has a very busy summer including a mission trip to Costa Rica and a trip to Japan with his grandparents.

Our second mile stone is that our youngest will be entering high school next year....YIKES!! She is already very busy with the high school dance team that has started practicing for the fall football games and band competitions. She just returned from Virginia where she attended a mission based church camp. What a wonderful time she had with her friend Katy!! They have made this camp a tradition....attending the camp together for the past four years.

I hope you are having a wonderful and relaxing summer!

Watch KATU tomorrow at 9:00 for AM Northwest. Deb will be presenting ideas for desk top Zen Gardens.

Book Release
Papercrafting Room by Room is finally here!!! It is scheduled to ship this month so you should be seeing it the book stores.

The book is available for purchase in the bookstore at www.deborahspofford.com

DSD has a new web site design. It is faster and a little larger than the old one. Check out the new bookstore.

I am very lucky to have a talented son that is willing to create a web site for his mother and put up with my computer challenged brain. Thanks Tucker!!

I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing Holiday. My favorite week of the year is between Christmas Day and New Years Day. We make a point to be very lazy during that week and this year we accomplished our goal!!

I am gearing up for the CHA trade show in Feb and a trip to Costa Rica at the end of this month. But....the first thing on my agenda for this week is to clean up my studio... I find it very hard to be creative and tidy at the same time. So...I create, create, create, and then I clean, clean, clean. Guess which one I like better.

Watch for quick and easy holiday decorating ideas on AM Northwest on December 21 at 9:00am.

Learn how to make Penny Rugs on AM Northwest November 16th. The show is broadcast in the Pacific Northwest on ABC from 9:00am-10:00am.

Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday the kids were getting out of school for the Summer and suddenly it is Fall. Our summer just zipped by. Here are some highlights..

July

• My parents 50th wedding aniversary celebration in Boise, Idaho (my home town) It was a really fun weekend and I finished their scrapbook just in time.
  
• Trip to Chicago for ACCI (Association of Crafts and Creative Industry). I worked in the Fiskars booth. The theme was Christmas in July and everything was decorated for the Holidays.
• Trip to Richmond, Virginia to take our daugher to summer camp. I got to spend a few very relaxing days at our friends cottage on the Bay. It was heaven!!! I also got to go junk/antique shopping with our neighbor. That shopping trip was the beginning of a new hobby for me. Help me! I have been bitten by the depression glass bug. I am just fasinated by the different patterns and history of this glassware. My husband says that I am deep into depression. HA Ha
  

August

• Went on a family vacation to the other Vancouver. Vancouver British Columbia that is. We had a wonderful time. Our favoite place was Grandville Island. It is full of artisans shops and has an unbeliviable farmers market.
  
• Trip to San Jose for a Scrapbook Expo show. My husband was also in San Jose at the same time so we stayed an extra day and enjoyed the time together. We stayed in an area called Santana Row. What a great place!!
  

September

• Finished the last projects for my book and shipped them to Ohio!!
  
• Attended a one day seminare in San Jose titled Breakthrough Thinking. I really enjoyed the class and learned some new communication skills and an awareness of how all of us interact with each other.
  
• The kids went back to school and I finally got to take some time off work.
  

October

• Tim and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!!
  
• Trip to Florida for a Memory Expo show
  
• Worked on updating my web site. (this is a never ending process)

Well, that is an overview of our last few months. I am looking forward to working in my studio this month and maybe sneak in a few trips to the antique stores....

EXCITING NEWS!!! My new book will be available in April 2005. It is filled with home decorating projects for every room in your home. The title is Papercrafting Room by Room. Watch my web site for updates and availability.

Watch AM Northwest tomorrow for decorating ideas for Fall. I will be showing how make a floral arrangement that is inspired by the changing season. The show airs in the Pacific Northwest beginning at 9:00am.